Shadows

June 19, Thursday, I returned to the Space Center for another adventure. This time around, I was placed on the Voyager as a Security Officer, despite my intentions to be Admiral on the Magellan. I still had a great time, however.

Our mission briefing told us that in Romulan space, three Borg Cubes had appeared. Every race immediately saw the threat that the Borg possessed and ran to the aid of the Romulans. The Cubes were destroyed, with heavy losses on the Romulans, who were not a powerful race after the encounter, and few losses on the Federation and Klingons. Everyone returned to their claim of space, and was excited by the impossible win. The victory was short lived, for the Borg soon returned with an entire army of Borg Cubes. The Romulans could no longer stand in the way of the Borg, the Klingons had decided to make a fleet large enough to take down the Borg, leaving their space an easy claim for the Borg, and the Orion Pirates had fled at first sight of the Borg, leaving the Federation to face the Borg alone. The federation decided the only planet that they absolutely could not allow to fall to the Borg was Earth, their Base of Operations, and so decided to make the last stand there. All Federation star ships were ordered to the frontier defense between Earth and Mars. The battle plan was that as soon as the front line's phasers were drained and they had to reload the torpedoes, they would go behind the back line to recharge and reload. If any ships were to be damaged, they would go behind Earth and return to the fight when they were repaired. However, during the fight, the Federation lost too many ships in the front line, and from then on the ships were forbidden to repair unless weapons weren't on-line. The skirmish turned out better for the Federation than the Romulans because they used strategy, instead of an all-out warfare. There were only three Borg Cubes left at the end, but his came at a price; the Federation had lost every one of their ships. The Borg then attacked the surface of Earth, assimilating everyone in sight. A few scientists had managed to get to underground bases. They knew it was only a matter of time before the Borg found them, and so released a virus that would kill any living creature on the surface of the Earth, including the Federation's own. The Borg fled the planet after they learned of this disease, and two out of three Borg Cubes successfully escaped. The third experienced technical problems, forcing the crew to abandon ship. The Federation knew that the Borg would be back to finish what it had started, and came to the conclusion that the only way to defeat the Borg was to have an astonishing force in such little time. The only way to do that, though, would be to find dilithium crystals enough to power. The Federation sent out messages to all of the Milky Way for dilithium crystals, and the only place that didn't respond was a small sector named 30CDR, which contained three solar systems, 30CDR A, 30CDR B, and 30CDR C. Our mission was to find dilithium crystals in one of the three systems.

We put together a ship made of the wreckage of the other ships lost in the fight, plus the trans-warp of the one Borg Cube that had to be abandoned. We set out for 30CDR, and everything was peaceful. That is, until we were boarded by Orion Pirates. There were ten of them, far too many for two Security Officers, and we were soon overrun. Before the pirates had arrived, we had hidden a phaser, and so luckily, we were able to force the pirates off the ship. All except the leader and his second in command named Ginger. We threw the pirates in the brig, unwilling to interrogate them at the moment, for we had to look for our sashes which were stolen and hidden by the pirates. We had very little time to do so because the pirates had called for reinforcements, and we couldn't get through brig's force field without our sashes. When we finally wormed the location of the sashes out of our prisoners, we learned they were in a place we really didn't want them to be: the brig. Not to mention all of our captured phasers had been put in the brig too. This was our situation: We couldn't get in the brig and had only one phaser, whereas our so-called prisoners could come and go as they pleased, had six phaser and a shield (the cot). Not a very pleasurable situation. We were relieved when the other pirates came, for they were only a rescue party. We arrived at 30CDR shortly after, but it was time to stop for the night.

The next morning, we had an unpleasant encounter with the Borg, who apparently wanted their trans-warp back, and as if that weren't enough, to rip us limb from limb. I suppose the fact that we high-tailed out of there didn't help the mood of the Borg. All well, we had a mission. We arrived at 30CDR shortly after the meeting. When we came out of the trans-warp we were astonished at what surrounded us: a graveyard of ships, some dating back nearly three-thousand years. We were intrigued by this, but nothing more. we scanned 30CDR for any likely spots for dilithium crystal and found that 30CDR A was the most hopeful. We set a course for it, but along the way through the graveyard, we found a rock floating through space, composed entirely of dilithium crystal. We decided we should go there instead, but an interesting thing happened; all of a sudden the computer mainframe went dead, and a man's shadow appeared on the computer. Slowly, he tied a rope around his neck and securwed the other end to a stick. Then the rope grew taut, and the man was lifted off the floor. Before to long, the man went limp. He had hung himself. We knew that this meant we were going to be shown no mercy, and Security was dispatched to guard Deck Two. Who it was that had accessed the computer mainframe and started scanning the files, we didn't know, but were soon to find out. Suddenly, the alarm alerted us of an unidentified life form about to transport onto the bridge of the ship and told us to go to Sick Bay. We hastened to comply, practically tripping over one another in an attempt to get to Sick Bay.

When we were all in Sick Bay, everyone who had a phaser had it trained on the stairway. We were taking no chances. We listened carefully for anything that might give away the intruder's position, but heard nothing but heavy breathing, which we rightly assumed was us. Then .........
Clang, clang, bang! Everyone of us jumped and tensed at the sound of metal clanging on metal. The Captain decided we were done hiding and sent Security to investigate. My partner and I unwillingly did so. Where ever there was a hiding spot, we shot before we investigated. We found: nothing. Nothing at all. The creature had vanished. Then we hear laughter, coming from everywhere. This beast was the reason our computer mainframe had shut down, and it was using the computer to taunt us! We told the crew it was safe to return; for now. Security was constantly moving, checking everywhere for the beast that had a crude sense of humor. Then we hear the creature say "Knock, Knock,", or rather we heard it breath it. Within seconds, we hear the door rattling, starling and scaring us all once more. When the creature breathed the words "Come out and play," the Captain tried to communicate with it by asking it who it was and what it wanted. The beast replied by breathing "I am your worst nightmare," and "This is a game for all of us. Don't you want to play?" Its reply could mean only one thing; it was a Borg and it was about to show its self after toying with us for a long time.

Everyone with phasers was immediately stationed down by the portal, for that was the most likely entrance. One Security Officer saw something move and shot his phaser. Then everyone tensed waiting for return fire, which came a few seconds later. We all scrammed to different areas of Deck Two, The Security officer who had shot to a sniping point on the stairs, the First Officer to Sick Bay, and me behind the counter. We all started shooting the Borg, but everything was reflected off him, back to us. The Borg then climbed to Deck Two, and from all the screaming we heard, we guessed it didn't go well. When we were revived from being stunned, we went upstairs to find that the Borg was gone, nowhere to be found. We were also informed that we had abducted the dilithium-composed rock. Not too long after the Borg came again, but this time, I was stationed upstairs. I shot it again, and once more, fell. An interesting thing happened then. One of the crew wasn't scared of the Borg, and when the Borg came near, it couldn't touch the crew member. The Borg left soon, and now, everyone knew how to ward off the Borg: do not show fear.

We got a little of our power back and decided it was time to get out of here, but the question was, how? Our engines were damaged, beyond repair aboard the ship, and we didn't have enough power for the trans-warp. Luckily, one of our crew came up with a brilliant solution: we fire a torpedo at one of the broken ships and ride the shock wave out of there. However, this caused radiation leaks to sprout all around the ship and the only safe place was Sick Bay. We all crowded in until the radiation alarm shut off. Just before the radiation disappeared, the doctor received a note from the Borg on his terminal, which said: "I am coming for you Greyson" and another shortly after which contained the following information "I can see and hear you Greyson." I wasn't too happy about this.

Finally! We had all power back! Plus we were just coming off the shock wave. We were all very happy. That is until we came to a halt from the shock wave and discovered several Borg Cubes waiting for us. We knew that if we were to make it out of there, we had to activate trans-warp, but we had a small issue. The Borg was coming for us to keep us from going into trans-warp. Security's mission: keep the Borg off the bridge. We couldn't shoot it or else that would stun us, which we couldn't afford in this moment of truth, so we did the only thing we could: we taunted it. We ran from it, and true to its word, it came after me. Nothing anyone else did would sway it's attention from me. Then, there was an interesting turn of events. When I was cornered, no way out, it suddenly turned and ran off ship. Why, we all asked? The answer? We had successfully escaped the Borg and completed our mission.